SET on a formerly contaminated dock site in Salford, the Lowry is a National Lottery success story. Inside the metal encased building, with its purple and orange interior, are an art gallery and two theatres. The Kirov Ballet made its North-West debut in the larger auditorium on Monday night, which was also the Lowry’s third anniversary.

The venue claims it attracts nearly a million visitors annually. Serving the local and regional community via a range of workshops and activities, it also presents top national and international talent in opera, theatre and dance. Hence the Kirov coup, which continues until May 3 with performances of Swan Lake (tonight and tomorrow) and the phantasmagoric La Bayadère

The Kirov Ballet, returning to Britain after two years' absence, made its first visit to the Lowry with Swan Lake. It sold out, and no wonder. Swan Lake, with its Tchaikovsky music and its tale of romantic love, remains the popular image of ballet; and British audiences adore the Kirov. This St Petersburg company is loved for its history - Petipa and Ivanov choreographed Swan Lake for the Kirov - for the grand scale of its dancing, for its exotic Russianness.

The Kirov Ballet flew into Britain, bringing Swan Lake and La Bayadère, its visit neatly timed to coincide with The Lowry's third birthday. Both the company and its shows, you can always be sure, sell tickets. And these timeless ballets, equally surely, receive picture-postcard, textbook productions, staged with care and understanding, presented with brilliance and flair. No sign of a hooting live owl tethered to Rothbart's head, no psychotic dwarf, no knights in armour, no Big New Concept. All those who have been bamboozled by recent banal gimmicks designed to "enhance" Petipa's choreography (and Jan Fabre's bizarre take on the story for the Royal Ballet of Flanders drags itself unwillingly to my mind) should get themselves over to Salford immediately

The Kirov go for the rare happy ending in this spectacular, but rather dated version of the ballet first staged by Konstantin Sergeyev in 1950. No jumping in the lake here. Instead of being united in love and death, the prince gets his girl and the swan princess escapes her avian imprisonment.

With its kaleidoscopic formations of swan maidens to rival any Busby Berkley permutations in act three, the dappled lakeside scene is the epitome of the classic white ballet, and the corps is unusually augmented by six black swans conjured by Rothbart to separate the lovers.

A TEENAGER whose hopes of becoming a dancer were cruelly dashed fulfilled a dream when she met a top Russian ballerina.

Elizabeth Waring, 19, and her family, from Ordsall, Salford, were guests of honour at a special matinee showing of the Kirov Ballet's production of Swan Lake at the Lowry.

The M.E.N. reported that when Elizabeth was 14 and about to enrol at stage school a virus damaged her heart and she needed a transplant. She also suffered brain damage, which ended her dreams of being a professional dancer.

Her mum, Katrina Waring, said: "Elizabeth loved every minute of it. She was clapping away and I kept seeing her dancing.

HAVING twice had the pleasure of seeing the Kirov in their own glorious Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, I never thought that I would get the chance to see them here.

The Lowry is a very different setting from the ornate Mariinsky, where Tchaikovsky worked and Swan Lake was first performed in 1895, but the 180-strong company of dancers and musicians seemed at home here last night.

You are unlikely to experience a more authentic and enthralling performance of the great classic than this, based on the original Petipa-Ivanov version, revised by Konstantin Sergeyev.

The Kirov floods the stage with dancers - and their precision and synchronisation of movement is unforgettable. Even with 32 ``swans'' in full flight, it is hard to spot a raised leg, an elevated arm, an angled head out of line.

We saw Swan Lake on Thursday; we felt slightly disappointed. La Bayadare tonight Saturday, was excellent. Do others think that Daria Pavlenko reminds them of Tamara Rojo? Her expressive use of her hands is so similar - a joy to watch and still a Soloist.

I like Daria Pavlenko as well sky9. I saw her as the Siren in Balanchine's "The Prodigal Son" and thought she was wonderful. Can't say that Tamara Rojo came to mind, but I'll look out that next time I see her.

WHEN it comes to 19th-century Russian classics, no one can beat the Kirov Ballet. Their repertoire is so richly endowed with their own heritage that they even have multiple versions of the same ballet. Take La Bayadère, for example.

The Kirov are currently on a mission to excavate their classics from the ideological and aesthetic dictates of the Soviet era. First they presented Petipa's Sleeping Beauty as it would have looked in 1890, plush with the leisure and luxe of the Tsarist age. Now they have attempted a similar reconstruction of La Bayadère - using the 1900, if not the original 1877 production, as a reference for reversing the edits and alterations of 20th-century producers.

I reviewed the Kirov's Swan Lake and La Bayadere for Ballet.co Magazine. In the Swan Lake performance Viktoria Tereshkina, a talented 20-year-old dancer in the corps de ballet, and Andrian Fadeyev made their debuts in the main roles. In La Baydere the exciting 20-year-old dancer Leonid Sarafanov made his debut as Solor.

A hypnotic vision of eternity Zoe Anderson for the Daily Telegraph reviews La Bayadére performed by the Kirov Ballet, at the Lowry, Salford.

La Bayadére caused a sensation when the Kirov Ballet first brought it to the West in 1961.

The excitement was over the Shades scene, an opium dream in which the hero sees his dead beloved in the world of ghosts. It's one of the great tests of the corps de ballet: in a hypnotic entrance, they descend a ramp in single file, repeating the same phrase. They look like reflections in a hall of mirrors, a vision of eternity.

The Shades scene is one of the set-pieces of 19th-century classicism. The rest of the ballet makes the most of another 19th-century tradition, the exotic melodrama. The warrior Solor loves the bayadére (temple dancer) Nikiya, but is betrothed to the Rajah's daughter.

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